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Lavrov says Russia to promote provisions excluding discrimination at PACE

MOSCOW, January 25. /TASS/. Russia will work to seek the adoption of provisions by the Council of Europe that would rule out the possibility of any discrimination at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said addressing the State Duma (lower house of parliament) on Wednesday.

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Russian State Duma speaker hopes PACE will confirm its pan-European status under Agramunt

"While continuing to honestly and openly defend our interests, which require complete removal of any restrictions against our delegation (at PACE - TASS), we need simultaneously to seek the inclusion of provisions banning any discrimination against any delegation in statutory documents," he said.

"As for the Council of Europe, such games are impossible there given that it does have culture," Lavrov went on to say. "Unfortunately, that has recently been put to the test, as the Ukrainian delegation and those who encourage it are doing their best to put to vote non-consensual, unilateral and one-sided decisions."

"That doesn’t add weight to the Council of Europe," Russia’s top diplomat emphasized. "However, the Council of Europe itself is an agency whose activities are based on legally binding conventions that form Europe’s common legal space, and this is beneficial to us."

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